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Chapter 929: Change of Aboriginal Culture to Local Culture Part 2
"Your Majesty, do you want to send immigrants to Yunnan to weaken the power of the local chieftains of various ethnic groups with the Han people from the interior?" Yuan Yingtai was the first to react and began to make some repairs on the large structure.

"Yes, if we want to completely solve the problem of local chieftains, changing the chieftain system to officialdom is only superficial, and the same language and ethnicity are the core. Not only in Yunnan, but also in Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, Huguang and other places, there are more or less local chieftains who do not obey the orders of the court.

Add to that Annan, Luzon, Liaodong, and Inner Mongolia, and there is a long way to go. If we cannot assimilate them one by one, there will be big trouble in the future. Yunnan is the test field I set up. We will experiment here for a few years to summarize the experience and lessons, and then promote it to other provinces after the method is mature.

At this point, Hong Tao no longer concealed his thoughts and revealed his ideas about ethnic assimilation. This step had to be taken sooner or later. Now that the country's strength was on the rise and there were no strong enemies around, it was a good time to show off his abilities internally.

"Your Majesty has a far-sighted vision, and I admire it from the bottom of my heart. But Yunnan alone requires hundreds of thousands of people to achieve initial results. Where will such a large population come from?"

As the emperor's right-hand man, although Yuan Yingtai had not heard of this plan in advance, he was not completely opposed to it. He just had doubts about some of its links.

If the emperor wanted to forcibly migrate people from various provinces, he would have to stop them. It was he and Du Song who were in charge of the migration of border residents from Liaodong. How can I describe it? It was simply a tragedy.

With a document from the imperial court, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee. That was the migration from Liaodong to the interior of China, which was only a thousand miles away. If it was to migrate to Yunnan, it would be at least several thousand miles away, and hundreds of thousands of people would have to walk there, and at least one-third of them would have died along the way. It was too cruel and could not be done.

"A few hundred thousand may not be enough. According to my estimation, at least one million will be needed to be effective. There are three main sources of population. The first is Luzon and Annan. Some local people still do not want to become citizens of the Ming Dynasty, so we simply capture them and send them to Yunnan to settle down. Within three years, we should be able to gather 100,000 or 200,000 people.

The second is the Yarkand Khanate. The new king has a weak foundation, and I will not allow him to kill people. The tribes that are unwilling to please the new king can be sent to Yunnan, where they will be quiet in a different environment.

Finally, and most importantly, the Han people. Don't worry, I won't force the people to immigrate, that would be bad for no one. But there should be no shortage of beggars and refugees in the prefectures and counties, right?
They are homeless and wandering around, stealing chickens and dogs, and committing crimes in groups. Rather than letting them harm the people, it is better to send them to farms to settle down.

The ethnic groups in Yunnan will certainly not remain indifferent to the influx of a large number of people. Those who stir up trouble can be ignored, but if there is any unusual movement, they will be arrested and sent to Hami and Khotan. Du Wenhuan is setting up a military settlement in the area and is in urgent need of manpower. "

Hong Tao smiled faintly and answered Yuan Yingtai's question without even looking at the notebook. He had been planning for several years on how to achieve ethnic integration, and had calculated various tricks in order to find a combination that would cause the least harm to society and have the least side effects.

It is not just to deal with Yunnan, but in multiple directions. While immigrants from Annan, Luzon, Yarkand, and Inner Mongolia are moving to Yunnan and Guizhou, the indigenous people in Yunnan and Guizhou should also be evacuated. One in and one out, one gain while the other loses, the effect is better.

"…If they are unwilling to work locally and flee back to the interior, the number of them will be so large that even the army will be powerless to stop them." Yuan Yingtai thought about it carefully and felt that doing so would not cause much harm to the people, so he agreed in principle.

However, there are still doubts about its feasibility. Unless people are treated as slaves and tied up with shackles, it is impossible for them to stay where they are placed peacefully.

Especially the beggars and refugees in various provinces, many of them are lazy and unwilling to work hard. Even if they move to another place, it is probably difficult to change their nature.

"Hehehe... Minister Sun, you come and answer Minister Yuan's question for me." Since it was a complete plan and it had been carefully planned for so many years, such basic problems must have been solved long ago. But Hong Tao did not say it directly, but turned around and smiled at the Minister of Revenue Sun Yuanhua.

"Your Majesty... could the ID card have a magical use?" Sun Yuanhua was listening intently, and when he was suddenly called, he had no reaction at all. He even forgot to stand up and sat there dumbfounded. But he soon got inspiration from the emperor's sinister smile and couldn't help but shout out.

"Yes! When the ID cards are issued to each province, the Jinyiwei will patrol the counties, prefectures, and cities. Those who go out without wearing them will be fined; those who don't have them will be arrested and sent to Yunnan. But it's not a farm, but hard labor.

I hope they all run away, so that there will be millions of hard laborers available to build roads, dams, and cities, and they don't have to pay a penny. If that's the case, some of you here will probably laugh out loud, right, Mr. Chen? "

If someone is unwilling to settle down in Yunnan and chooses to flee back to the mainland, or hides in the mountains without interacting with others, Hong Tao is really helpless. But how many people are unwilling to own their own houses and land and insist on going to the mountains and forests to be wild people? Hong Tao believes that there are definitely not many and they can be ignored.

"I have a heavy responsibility on my shoulders, so naturally the more the better!"

Minister of Construction Chen Jiashu was not as surprised as Sun Yuanhua, and happily admitted it. The emperor did not allow arbitrary conscription of labor, so when encountering a large project, people had to be hired to do the work, which was very expensive.

If the Ministry of Construction could be given a million hard-labor prisoners, the work would be much easier. It would be no problem to start work at the same time in any direction. They would only be provided with food but no wages, and they could be supervised with a whip. Anyone who worked slowly could be whipped directly. The efficiency would be extremely high.

"Your Majesty, although Yunnan is not a barren land, it is inconvenient to travel due to its high mountains and long roads. With the sudden increase of over a million people, if they cannot be self-sufficient, they may need relief from the imperial court."

The population migration problem was solved, and Wang Xiangjin, the Minister of Agriculture, raised the issue of interests. The emperor made it clear that the army, the model environment, and interests were indispensable.

Now we have the army and the environment, but we don't see where the benefits are. If the local output cannot feed so many immigrants, then it's better not to do it. When people are hungry, they can do anything. Not to mention a million, a hundred thousand hungry people can mess up Yunnan, and the imperial court will have to clean up the mess in the end.

"Your Majesty Wang may not have been to Yunnan. You have only heard that it has high mountains, dense forests and wild animals. But that is not the case. Yunnan's land is quite fertile, with abundant water resources, long sunshine hours and four seasons like spring. It is more suitable for farming than Shanxi and Shaanxi.

The reason why it has never been well-known since ancient times is mainly because it is far away from the Central Plains, with inconvenient transportation, sparse population and backward farming technology. After the immigrants came in, they not only brought new crops, but also brought better farming methods and sufficient labor.

If Yuan Keli's farm is successful, within ten years, Yunnan will become the granary of the southwest, and land will be hard to find. I don't know what you guys are planning, but I have asked the queen to send her family to buy suitable land in the local area and hire dozens of households to grow tobacco.

After the harvest, in addition to supplying it to me, it can also be sold. Now the price of this thing on the market is more expensive than cocoa powder. If I plant a few hundred acres, I'm afraid the income in a year will be higher than that of Liuguangzhai."

(End of this chapter)